Soros-Backed Voting Study Promoted By Soros-Funded Media

Once again the media is completely ignoring the fact that an initiative it’s covering was funded by left-wing financier George Soros. The Soros-funded Brennan Center for Justice released a report opposed to new laws needed to combat voter fraud. This story was in turn promoted by Soros-funded progressive news sites that brought it to the national stage.

The Brennan Center for Justice, part of New York University’s Law School, reported that voting law changes “could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012.” This 64 page report went on to explain that the effects “fall most heavily on young, minority, and low-income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities” and that the “wave of changes may sharply tilt the political terrain for the 2012 election.”

The price tag for the report? Soros’s Open Society Foundations gave the Brennan Center for Justice $7,466,000 from 2000 to 2010. New York University also received $2,819,540 during this same time period. That’s a total of $10, 285,540.

None of the five stories by The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, or CBS News noted that this study was funded by Soros. However, when the Koch Brothers fund a libertarian or conservative initiative the media tend to make note of it.

Each outlet had one story on the topic, but only CBS News said the Brennan Center for Justice as a “the liberal think tank” which the other stories failed to say. The Wall Street Journal did imply it when they said the Center was “named after the liberal Supreme Court justice William Brennan.” These articles did include liberal and conservative views, such as The New York Times which said “Republicans, who have passed almost all of the new election laws, say they are necessary to prevent voter fraud” and a quote from the Heritage Foundation.

The story first showed up in a preview by The New York Times on Oct. 2. The findings then made the rounds on liberal blogs and were written up by other outlets. This Soros-funded report was then promoted by the Soros-funded lefty media, which reaches more than 300 million people every month. Members of the Media Consortium, which received $425,000 from the Open Society Foundations, pushed the story when it first broke.

The Nation article was titled “GOP Voting Laws Could Swing the 2012 Election” and described “The GOP War on Voting.” The Nation Institute received $77,000 from the Open Society Foundations since 2000, on top of being a member of the Media Consortium. ColorLines said the report “puts forth an ominous prediction.” AlterNet linked to a Loop21 article subtitled “New voting restrictions try to ensure President Obama is a one termer.”

Other members followed a similar tune. Campus Progress said “the report paints a troubling picture,” while Think Progress just said there were a “slew of GOP-backed laws that restrict voting rights” These two blogs are both part of Democrat John Podesta’s Center for American Progress, which took in $7.3 million from the Open Society Foundations.

As the Business & Media Institute has reported, a study by the Media Consortium detailed how progressives had created an "echo chamber" of outlets "in which a message pushes the larger public or the mainstream media to acknowledge, respond, and give airtime to progressive ideas because it is repeated many times." According to the report called "The Big Thaw," "if done well, the message within the echo chamber can become the accepted meme, impact political dynamics, shift public opinion and change public policy."

*****Update: Democracy Now! joined fellow Media Consortium members to promote this story.